Star Wars: Crimson Reign #5
THE SCARLET QUEEN”
LADY QI’RA has used every tool at her disposal to generate chaos in the Galactic Empire, all to further her goal of eradicating the Sith.
But as the final phase of Qi’ra’s grand plan is revealed, she is about to learn a lesson that the Jedi Order also came to understand.
Underestimate EMPEROR PALPATINE and pay the price.
Writer: Charles Soule
Penciller: Steven Cummings
Inker: Victor Olazaba
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Colorist: Guru-eFX
Cover artist: Leinil Francis Yu
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Publication date: June 22, 2022
Having secured the Screaming Key from Fortress Vader The Archivist, accompanied by the Knights of Ren, travels to an unnamed planet to locate an ancient artefact instrumental in Crimson Dawn’s plans. Meanwhile Lady Qi’ra is forced to accelerate her plans as the Emperor firmly pinpoints the source of the unrest within the Empire and the galaxy at large.
This is where it all comes together. The content of the Crimson Reign crossover thus far has seemed much looser and more separate than the first part of Soule’s Crimson Dawn trilogy, War of the Bounty Hunters. Where that seemed rigidly plotted to a point where you needed to read every issue of all four ongoing series’ and the main War of the Bounty Hunters run for it to retain any sense of coherence, Crimson Reign has been much more relaxed and is all the better for it. Each series has managed to retain it’s style and identity and tell it’s own separate tale, resulting in one of the most consistent periods in canon Marvel comics since 2015. This issue, titled “The Scarlet Queen” is the one that brings it all together.
“The Scarlet Queen” underlines one of the strongest points of both crossover arc’s so far. Qi’ra is a fantastic character and Soule has handled her perfectly. From the events of Solo, and it’s underrated prequel Most Wanted, to Soule’s work here we have such a satisfying character trajectory that legitimises the injection of this story between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi forty years after their release. It could have been so much worse and more jarring but what we have here is a worthy alternative to Legends’ Shadows of the Empire multimedia initiative which was set during the same period.
The story that follows The Archivist and the Knight’s of Ren is incredibly exciting and looks to take the franchise into new territory. It put me in mind of the moment in the TV show Lost when a character turned a crank during the endgame of a season and made the island disappear changing the show forever. The actual result in this issue was a little more vague but it suggests at something meaningful rather than the usual light tread of the expanded material. Since the Sequel trilogy ended, Star Wars publishing is getting increasingly more bold and I’m here for it, devouring each page and panel. I hope the TV shows take note because this is how it should be done.
Don’t expect everything to be tied up with a bow, as stated earlier this is the second part of a trilogy with the third and final part, Hidden Empire, launching this October. What we do get though is incredibly tantalising with one of the best cliffhangers we’ve had. Could there be time travel once again in Star Wars? I sincerely hope so because if anyone can keep it this side of ridiculous it’s Charles Soule. There’s still a little more of the story line to wrap up with the other ongoing series’ but I expect that they will show things from a different perspective and drop a couple more teases like Midnight Horizon did with the main event of The Fallen Star.
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